The present patent of invention refers to “IMPROVEMENT IN A LARGE SCALE MODULAR FRUIT JUICE EXTRACTION SYSTEM”, or be it, as the nomenclature indicates, a system developed with the intent to obtain juice of citrus fruit such as orange, tangelo, grapefruit, lemon, lime, tangerine, mekan, ponkan, and other non-citrus fruit of round and semi spherical shapes.
The important characteristics of the system presented here is the fact that it is substantially compact, modular, durable, simple and produces juice of high quality by the method of extraction, and additionally, thanks to its compact and modular configuration, permits the production of juice on a large scale.
The state of the art is known by various previous patents by the same inventor, including patent PI9502244-9, patent PI9503109-0, patent PI0005957, patent MU7800719-4, patent DI5501053-9, patent MU7502784-4 and other Brazilian patents, as well as also including international patents originated from these, like North American patents, such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,655,441, U.S. Pat. No. 5,720,218, U.S. Pat. No. 5,720,219 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,802,964, that revolutionized the market with the introduction of a method of juice extraction that eliminates the traditional bitter taste of citrus juices, by eliminating the contact of the peel oil with the extracted juice.
Notwithstanding the improvements in the above-referenced patents and applications, several problems in the commercial fruit juicing industry remained unsolved. First, during replacement of existing juicing equipment with juicing machinery incorporated the horizontal juicing technology of the present applicant, there is a problem of how to maximize the juicing capacity on a per square foot of floor space below the existing fruit sorting and delivery systems. Associated with this is a desire, based on economics and capital investment, to reduce any modifications to such existing fruit sorting and delivery systems. Second, there are associated problems inherent in new equipment, first in the high capital cost when there is redundancy in basic structures, and second in the operational and output-lowering downtime when one unit, such as a power drive, in a larger multi-unit module, fails and requires that the entire multi-unit module is taken off the production line. As disclosed herein, the present invention solves these problems.
The equipment based its improvements by use of a process of peeling the fruit before the extraction of the juice is completed, by use of a fixed peeler cup (concave and semi-hemispherical) and, by the action of the pressing of the fruit by another identical movable peeler cup, in which in the joint operation of closing, acts on the peel by cutting longitudinal peel strips. During and immediately after this process, almost instantaneously, the internal portions of the fruit containing the pulp and juice, enter into a filtering device, that forces the juice to pass through its radial slits and is then collected in the juice collector, which has a lower end that makes it possible, by the action of gravity, to flow to a tubular juice collector. The core of the fruit now drained of its juice and in its dried state is then expelled by a plunger, returning in the direction of the opening of the filter, in a way that it is completely expelled, being forced to vertically fall, by action of gravity, into and between the peeler cups, and finally, falling into peel and core transport devices.
Other advances were introduced in this system and were object of other patents and patent applications as cited earlier, nevertheless, always incorporating the original scope of the basic invention.